Nova (The Renegades Book 2)

At Sea

“I’m seriously bummed about the beverage situation,” I told Leah the next day as I evil-eyed my Pepsi.

“I promise that while we’re exploring Sri Lanka, you’re not going to be thinking about Cherry Coke.” She flipped a page in her economics book and didn’t even look up. Her focus was incredible, especially since we sat in a crowded cafeteria with the ocean directly in front of us. Maybe she was immune to the view. After all, she’d been on board for three months already. I was still entranced with…well, everything.

“I’m not sure I’ll be exploring with you,” I said as I moved my fries over and squeezed a small puddle of ketchup onto my plate.

Leah slammed her book shut. “What do you mean? We planned this whole trip together.” Her eyes narrowed. “You don’t want to be around Landon.”

I dipped my fry, then bit and savored the deliciousness. There was something about having American comfort food when you weren’t anywhere near America that had me ready to hug the ship’s chef.

“Don’t avoid the question by molesting your food,” Leah ordered.

“Fine. I don’t want to be around Landon. I already have to be with him for two classes, and I don’t really want him included in all of my sailing around the world memories.”

She narrowed her eyes at me while she chewed thoughtfully.

“Do you want to know what I think?” she finally asked.

“Nope,” I said, popping another fry into my mouth. That cheeseburger looked really good, too.

“Well, I’m going to tell you, anyway.”

“I figured as much.” I sucked down a sip of my Pepsi and waited. The best and worst part of having Leah as a best friend was that she didn’t pull punches. She had no problem calling me out on my bullshit.

“I don’t think you ever got over him.”

My chest heaved, and it took every muscle in my body to keep the soda from flying out of my nose. Somehow I managed to safely swallow. “Seriously?”

“When we met, it was right after Landon left you, and Brian had just died.”

“Yeah, we were both wrecks.” I loved that she could say Brian’s name now without crying. Losing her boyfriend in a horrific car crash had shut her down in every way possible, and I had Wilder to thank for her progress. One more check mark in his pro column.

She reached over and took my hand with a gentle squeeze. “I was a wreck. You were distant, cold to everyone in the world but me, but you held yourself together. You held me together for those first months at Dartmouth and then helped me figure out how to live again.”

“Leah…” I never had words when she said stuff like that. She’d been so wounded then, barely surviving, and now here she was a hell of a lot more stable than I was.

“You were so busy taking care of me and my grief that you didn’t give yourself time to process yours. Between classes and moving and, well…me, you threw all you had into everything but dealing with losing Landon.”

I crossed my arms in front of my chest like they could fend off her truths.

“Don’t get all defensive,” she chided. “You’re amazing, and stronger than I ever could be. I just think that maybe there’s more going on than you’re willing to clue me in on—or maybe admit to yourself. You’d never even told me his name, or what happened, and we’ve lived together for over two years. All I knew was that a guy broke your heart the same day you broke your wrist, and he wasn’t up for discussion.”

I looked out at the Arabian Sea, watching the waves crest as we cut through the water, and tried to let her words sink in. Was she right? Sure, I’d thrown everything Landon-related into a heartbreak-proof box and shoved it so deep I couldn’t even find the thing, but that didn’t mean I’d never gotten over him. Did it?

“I probably should have talked to you about him. But you had so much on your shoulders then, you didn’t need my issues weighing on you, too. Maybe I used you to hide from my own shit. And maybe I liked that he was blocked out of every aspect of my life at Dartmouth, almost as if another person had loved him,” I admitted. Taking a breath to steady my nerves, I chose to rip the scab off and open myself to Leah the way she had done countless times. “What makes this almost unbearable is that I see him, and the memories come crashing back. I hear his voice, and I remember every conversation. But if I think about it, really give myself a moment, then it’s just this giant vat of pain and embarrassment.”

“Embarrassment?”

I laughed, and it wasn’t pretty. “How much has Wilder told you?”

“He just gave me a general overview of what happened, and then told me he forced Landon to choose between you and the Renegades.”

My stomach fell. “And Landon chose them. Eventually.”

“I’m so sorry.”

I waved her off. “Don’t be. I learned to depend on myself, to guard my heart, and I met you. Landon and I…well, we’re both better off for what he did.” My voice trailed off, as if I couldn’t tell the lie at full volume.

“You’re not, and I know he’s not.”

“What do you mean?” I abandoned the fry that was halfway to my mouth and looked longingly at the cheeseburger. I was so hungry that I was going to have to talk with my mouth full soon if Leah insisted on keeping this conversation going.

“Pax told me that Landon’s been a miserable asshole since he came back. That he was unfocused, and then started to fill the void…” She blushed.

“There’s a reason they call me the curse. And don’t worry, I know exactly how he filled that void.” Landon was well known in the extreme sports community, and my father hadn’t kept his Casanova reputation from me. He called it “congratulating me on dodging a bullet.” I called it rubbing salt in an already gaping wound.

I was apparently easily replaceable by any woman with a heartbeat and two legs.

“They call you a curse?” she asked.

I sneaked a fry and nodded. “Yep,” I said after I swallowed. “He fucked up every trick the first six months he was back, and the next thing I know there’s a blogger calling it ‘the curse of Rachel.’ Awesome, right? Even better knowing he’d pulled the quote directly from a Renegade.”

“Which one?”

“Penna.”

“Penna? But she’s so sweet!”

“Until you screw with her family. Then she hates you forever and ever. Anyway, Wilder doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Landon didn’t just get over me, he jumped, hurtled, warp-sped over me.”

“That’s not what Pax says,” she insisted.

“What do I say?” Wilder asked from behind us.

Kill me now. I turned slowly, mentally preparing myself for humiliation. The last thing I needed was Wilder telling me— Fuck my life. Landon was coming up behind him.

I spun so fast the ends of my hair smacked me in the face.

“Oh, nothing you need to worry about,” Leah insisted as Wilder took the seat next to her, which left the seat next to me open to—

“You have got to be kidding me,” I muttered as Landon sat down next to me, an identical cheeseburger on his tray.

I pushed away from the table. This was why I’d eaten in our suite since I’d gotten here. The ship was too damn small to avoid him everywhere. Hell, maybe the earth was too small.

“Rachel, please don’t,” Landon said softly, his fingers lightly wrapping around my wrist.

That zing of current I only ever felt with him zipped up my arm, and I yanked away.

“Whoa,” Leah said as she caught the edge of my tray.

“Sorry.” I righted the tray, saving my quickly cooling cheeseburger.

“Rachel, we need you,” Wilder said quickly and quietly.

“What? Why?” I asked, locking my gaze onto him. He was safe. He didn’t send my hormones skyrocketing or turn me into a puddle of gullible goo.

“Because you haven’t signed the media waiver,” Landon answered.

God, even his voice, that deep velvet timbre, sent little chills over me. I crossed my arms so he couldn’t see the gooseflesh and kept my eyes on Wilder. “So what?”

“Since you haven’t signed it, they won’t bother filming us at lunch—they can’t use any of the footage you’re in until you sign it. We really need to discuss a few things, and unless we want to have the conversation in the bathroom, we can’t escape those damn cameras.” He motioned behind me.

I pulled my best not-too-obvious turn and saw Bobby with a cameraman shifting his weight from foot to foot across the room. “So you need to use me as a shield.”

“I’m getting sick of seeing them everywhere, Pax,” Leah whispered.

“I know. Do you want to eat in your suite?” he offered.

“No, I’d like to come down from the ivory tower every once in a while,” she said, shuffling her fries on her plate.

Guilt stabbed me in the chest. I’d been so selfishly concerned with running into Landon that I hadn’t thought of how this documentary had to be affecting my very shy friend. “I’ll stay. For her,” I clarified. “Not you.”

“Not me?” Landon asked.

“On the condition that he doesn’t speak to me,” I told Wilder. Sitting this close to Landon was hard enough. I wasn’t sure I could handle a full conversation without either throwing my food in his face or breaking down completely and begging for an explanation. Neither option appealed to me.

Wilder’s gaze swung between mine and Landon’s before he rubbed his hand over his head and sighed. “Fine.”

“Pax—” Landon protested.

“We have bigger fish to fry at the moment,” Wilder snapped. “We’ve got all of twenty-four hours to figure this stunt out.”

I finally dressed my gorgeous cheeseburger, moving my tomato to the right side of my plate and mourning the fact that I only had three pickle slices, as the guys started talking in low voices that I tried my best to tune out. “There’s no salt,” I muttered, pushing back from the table. “I’ll be right back,” I said to Leah before I headed for the condiment table.

“You okay?” Leah asked in a whisper as she caught up with me.

I started to say that I was fine, but the look in her eyes warned me against the lie. As much as I’d kept this part of my life to myself, Leah was in it now. “It’s just…really familiar,” I answered quietly. “Like really creepy déjà vu.”

Except I’d hurt one of them, the other one had broken me, and none of us were dating each other. This took weird to a whole new level.

“I’m so sorry you’re in this position.”

Looking over her shoulder, I saw the cameras make their way toward the table. “I guess we’d better rescue them.”

She squeezed my forearm and gave me an understanding nod. It felt like both sides of my life—both sides of me—were colliding, past and present crashing and combining in ways I wasn’t ready for.

The cameras backed away as I approached with the saltshaker, one of the crew blatantly rolling his eyes as they retreated. After sprinkling salt on my fries, I finally sank my teeth into lunch, savoring the perfectly cooked burger, the sharp tang of cheddar and twist of pickle.

“You’re going to have to ask them to loop back around, or we need to pick a different island,” Landon said.

“It’s a cruise ship. It doesn’t exactly loop around,” Wilder countered.

“Well, then we wait for a better location.”

“No. The timing is perfect, the weather is perfect, and Little John is already there waiting with the boat.”

“Well, unless we can figure out how to get back on the ship, we’ll have to cancel it,” Landon said with a shrug.

“We’re not canceling something this epic.”

“Did you ask Penna what she thinks?” Leah asked.

“No,” Wilder answered, his voice sharp.

“We tried to, but she won’t talk about anything stunt-related,” Landon answered. “That’s why we didn’t want the cameras listening in. She’s having a hard enough time with all the shit that just went down; we don’t need it replayed for her when the documentary comes out.”

That little dead place in my chest I used to call a heart gave a little jolt. Leave it to Landon to say something all sweet and protective.

To keep myself from weighing in on whatever they were discussing, I devoured more of my burger. It was perfection, even with only half the amount of pickles I—

Wait. I slowly put my cheeseburger on my plate and removed the top. I’d eaten half of it and yet there were still three pickles there.

“What exactly are you trying to do?” Leah asked.

And where was my tomato? I’d left it on my plate. The déjà vu feeling hit me twice as hard, and against every ounce of my better judgment, I glanced over to Landon’s cheeseburger—and the two tomato slices that peeked out of the side.

Landon had given me his pickles and taken my tomato, just like every other time we’d eaten cheeseburgers together since we’d met. It was achingly familiar, right and wrong all in the same breath.

“We’re going to wakeboard behind the boat,” Wilder answered Leah.

Had Landon thought about the pickles? Or had it been some subconscious movement, like parts of him had simply readjusted to being next to me?

“What boat?” Leah asked.

“The Athena.”

Tomatoes immediately forgotten, my attention snapped to Wilder. “As in the cruise ship?” I asked, my mouth slightly agape.

“Yep!” he said with a grin. “It was Leah’s idea, actually.”

“It was a joke!” she exclaimed.

As the two got into a minor bicker over the outrageous idea, my mind worked overtime. Could it be done? Sure. With major effort, a lot of tries, and some really gifted athletes. But getting them back on the ship?

“You cannot be serious!” Leah hissed.

“Come on, Firecracker. It would be amazing,” he countered.

If they got off at the refueling stop, then they’d simply have to get back on while we were moving.

“What are you thinking?” Landon asked me.

I fought the instinct to answer him and looked over at Wilder instead. “Do you have a wakeboard for each of you?”

“Of course,” he answered, his eyebrows lowering. “What’s on your mind?”

“Do you have a power parasailing winch? Or could Little John get one onboard during the refuel?”

“He could get ours…where are you going with this?” Wilder asked.

“Holy shit, she’s brilliant,” Landon said, his voice full of the kind of awe I didn’t want to hear.

“Rachel?” Leah asked.

“You’re right,” Landon muttered, grabbing a pen from his pocket and putting it to his napkin. He drew quickly, careful not to tear the paper. “If we mounted it here,” he said, pointing to what I assumed was the back of the ship.

“Farther back. Remember the setup when we launched off the back of that ski boat in California? You have to land somewhere, and you have to get it high enough to keep it from rubbing,” I said, taking the pen and marking above where he had.

“But how would we get the lines…?”

I kept my eyes on the paper, refusing to look up into the hazel eyes I knew would swallow me whole. “You have to use it as the tow rope. The rider would then have to attach it to his harness.”

“We have the chutes on board,” Landon said. “But it would be a bitch to keep them dry. The first time we miss the initial rope, they’re soaked.”

I shrugged. “Wet chutes are prone to sticking and deploying slowly. But if it’s open, then you’re golden. The hard part would be the initial jolt.”

“Are they always like this?” Leah asked.

“Scarily in tune with each other?” Wilder clarified. “Yes.”

I snapped my hand back from the napkin like it had been bitten. Stupid girl. One mention of a stunt they couldn’t work out and I’d jumped right back in, helping plan out details like I’d never left. So much for keeping my distance.

I grabbed my tray with shaky hands and looked over at Wilder. “You two can figure this out from here?”

“Rachel…” Landon pleaded.

“I’ll see you later, Leah,” I said to my wide-eyed best friend, who looked at me like she’d never seen me before. Then I walked as calmly as I could, when all I wanted to do was run, and dumped my food into the trash can before placing my tray on the pile.

“I know what you’re doing,” Landon said from behind me when I’d almost made it to the door.

“Oh?” I asked, not pausing in my stride.

“You’re trying to ignore me. That’s your game plan? When all else fails, avoid the problem?”

I stopped, hating that he knew me so well.

He was so close to my back that I could feel the heat radiating off him through my thin top.

“I’m not going to be easy to avoid, not when I’m putting myself in your path at every possible moment. In fact, I’m going to make it impossible for you to ignore me, Rachel.”

His breath ghosted across the shell of my ear, and I barely suppressed a shiver of pure awareness. Remember what he did to you. Remember watching your phone, packing the boxes, begging Dad. Remember what a broken heart and trampled pride felt like.

I straightened my shoulders and focused on the exit. “Watch me.”